


enough

by epsiloneridani



Category: Halo (Video Games) & Related Fandoms
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Jorge gives the best hugs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 13:03:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16086674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/epsiloneridani/pseuds/epsiloneridani
Summary: Sometimes, they’re not enough.Jorge still tries to be.





	enough

Sometimes, they’re not enough.

They weren’t there for the glassing, weren’t there for the storm, but knowing that it happened – is happening – is enough to keep Jorge awake long into the night. He wanders the  _Dawn_ while the rest of the ship slumbers on, a silent sentinel or a wayward spectre to haunt the hushed halls. There are few others awake, just the maintenance workers and a midnight skeleton crew.

And Carter, shuffling toward him, here but still somewhere far away. Jorge stops beside him at the same instant he snaps completely upright, fighting to be alert.

Fighting to be strong.

Their Commander’s eyes are dark and haunted, his shoulders shaking, but for all of the world-weary exhaustion he exudes he still looks so damn  _young_.

“Sir,” Jorge offers quietly. Carter blinks at him a moment and shrugs away the formality.

“Jorge.”

His voice cracks; his eyes are bloodshot. Jorge tilts his head to the side to catch his gaze. “We did all we could,” he says and hopes the suddenness of the address is enough to break through that wall.

Carter snorts softly. His hand draws into a fist at his side; his sleep-shirt and pants are rumpled like he tried to rest but has been replaying their last mission instead – over and over until it drives him mad.

“I never should have–” he starts.

“It’s over now,” Jorge interrupts shortly. He’s only known him for a little over a year but that’s enough to learn that Carter’s terrible at letting go of his mistakes and close to incapable of not analyzing even his  _successes._  Loss weighs on him. Failure crushes him.

Something breaks, a twitch of the jaw Carter can’t control. For an instant he’s forlorn, a lost child trying desperately to understand  _why_ , and Jorge is reminded that he’s chronologically around twenty-three but four years spent in cryo on the way to Biko puts him closer to eighteen or nineteen biologically. A kid thrown into a war. A kid who watched almost all of his first squad die.

One of two survivors.

Kat’s barely fourteen, one of Beta’s finest, and not four hours ago she was charging into hell alongside him – fearless fire. Still just a kid. Both of them – still just  _kids._

Carter rubs at his face roughly, clears his throat. “Get some rest,” he orders hoarsely. His nails are digging into his palms. “You look like you could use it.”

“You too,” Jorge hedges. Carter grimaces, lifting one shoulder in half a shrug.

“I’ll sleep. Later.”

Jorge dares rest a hand on his back, gentle, deliberate. It soothed his brothers and sisters those long years ago on Reach; it can’t be so different for the IIIs. “You did all you could,” he repeats. “There was nothing else left.”

Carter glances at his feet and Jorge takes the opportunity to pull him carefully forward, folding his arms around him in a protective cocoon. “You did all you could,” he says again.

Carter trembles but doesn’t pull away, driving shaky fingertips into solid shoulderblades like he hasn’t been held since before Onyx, like he’s never felt  _safe_ , like he can’t  _remember_  feeling safe, and Jorge tightens his hold until the shuddering slows and stops and the tension in Carter’s frame slips away.

Sometimes, they’re not enough. For now, this’ll have to be.

–


End file.
